Pinterest Affiliate Marketing: How to Start and Make Money in 2023

Affiliate marketing is the game of leveraging different social media platforms in the best way possible to generate the maximum revenue. One of the best, yet most underrated social media platforms, Pinterest can be a great addition to every affiliate marketer’s strategy. Pinterest already has more than 455 million users, with monthly clicks going well over a billion. The platform is the hub for visually pleasing content and is loved by millions who love to pin content for their next vacation, projects, outfits, events, and more. Today, let us talk about different aspects of Pinterest Affiliate Marketing and how you can nail your strategy on the first try.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a platform that serves as a visual discovery engine, allowing users to find inspiration in various areas, such as recipes, home decor, fashion, and more.

With an extensive collection of billions of Pins, Pinterest offers many ideas to ignite inspiration. When users come across Pins they love, they can save them to personalized boards to keep their ideas organized and easily accessible. Additionally, users can create their Pins and share their unique ideas with others on the platform.

Why Should You Choose Pinterest for Affiliate Marketing?

Pinterest is a visual platform that allows users to ‘pin’ different types of content and save them in the form of ‘boards’. People use Pinterest for inspiration, content curation, and much more. Here’s why Pinterest can be a great way for any affiliate marketer to increase their business.

1. Visually Attractive

Pinterest is a very visual platform that makes it simple for users to find new products, services, and content. It is an excellent platform for affiliate marketing because it enables you to present things attractively.

2. Loved by Millions

With over 455 million active users from around the world, Pinterest has a sizable user base and is a great platform for advertising products and services.

3. Powerful SEO

Pinterest’s robust search engine and sophisticated targeting features make it simpler to find the ideal market for your affiliate products.

4. Simple User Interface

The Pinterest platform is simple to use and enables you to quickly and easily generate aesthetically stunning and engaging posts.

5. Analytics Suite

Pinterest also offers a range of tools and analytics that can help you track the performance of your affiliate campaigns.

6. Free Platform

Pinterest is completely free to use and can be a great way to generate additional revenue through affiliate marketing.

Pinterest is particularly beneficial for niches that involve ‘visual-heavy’ products. These include industries like Travel, Food, Health and fitness, DIY crafts, and Home décor. If you are new to affiliate marketing, we would advise you to select your niche first and decide if it is a good fit for Pinterest or not.

How to Start Affiliate Marketing on Pinterest in India?

To start affiliate marketing on Pinterest, follow these steps:

1. Choose a Niche

Determine the niche or industry you want to focus on for your affiliate marketing efforts. Select a niche that aligns with your interests and has a target audience on Pinterest.

2. Set up a Pinterest Business Account

Create a dedicated Pinterest business account or convert your account into a business account. A business account provides access to valuable analytics and allows you to run ads if desired.

3. Optimize Your Profile

By selecting a clear and relevant profile picture, writing a compelling bio, and adding a link to your website or landing page.

4. Create Boards

Create boards on Pinterest that relate to your chosen niche. Organize your boards around specific topics or themes to attract the right audience. For example, if you promote fitness products, create boards for workout routines, healthy recipes, and fitness tips.

5. Pin High-Quality Content

Start pinning high-quality and visually appealing content to your boards. Curate pins from affiliate programs or create your pins using graphic design tools like Canva. Ensure each pin includes a compelling image, a clear description, and a relevant affiliate link.

6. Join Affiliate Programs

Sign up for affiliate programs relevant to your niche. Research and select reputable affiliate networks like EarnKaro or individual affiliate programs that offer products or services that align with your audience’s interests.

7. Disclose Affiliate Links

To comply with legal requirements and maintain transparency with your audience, clearly disclose that your pins contain affiliate links. Add a disclosure statement in the pin description or use Pinterest’s built-in disclosure feature.

8. Focus on SEO

Optimize your pin descriptions and board titles with relevant keywords to improve search engine visibility. This will help your pins appear in Pinterest search results and increase their chances of being discovered by users.

9. Promote Your Pins

Increase the reach and visibility of your pins by promoting them through paid advertising on Pinterest. Utilize Pinterest’s advertising features, such as Promoted Pins, to target specific audiences and drive more traffic to your affiliate links.

10. Monitor and Analyze

Regularly monitor the performance of your pins and boards using Pinterest analytics. Analyze the engagement, click-through rates, and conversions to identify successful strategies and adjust as needed.

How & Where to Add Affiliate Links on Pinterest?

1. Create a Pin

Make a business profile on Pinterest. Visit your profile page if you already have one. Select Create Pin from the Create tab and share your creativity with the world.

2. Add Pin Details

Adding Pin details is an important step to let users, as well as the platform, know what you are talking about. Try to include characteristics like a title and pin description, and then use targeted keywords to make them SEO-friendly. You can use post-specific keywords to narrow down your targeted audience pool. Do not overuse keywords, as it can lead to keyword stuffing and will prove counterproductive. Make sure your descriptions are thorough and intelligent, as well. Use your descriptions to provide the users with the information or inspiration they seek.

3. Create Aesthetically pleasing Graphics

As we mentioned above, Pinterest is largely a visual search engine. Users should be enticed to click on your image. The aspect ratio of Pinterest images is 2:3, with a portrait orientation. The recommended image size for the platform is 1000 x 1500 pixels. Anything larger might be truncated, which could hurt how well Pin performs. Make sure to use compelling along with readable text styles if you’re adding text to the image.

4. Add your Affiliate Link

Remember to include your affiliate link in the Destination Link section. You can obtain links from your affiliate network. Instead of putting direct affiliate connections, think about adding links that go to landing pages. However, this does not imply that you should completely cease using direct affiliate connections. Direct affiliate links are simple to utilize and direct users to the desired location. However, some visitors might be wary of direct links to unfamiliar websites.

5. Publish

The last and most important step is to publish. Marketers can choose to ‘Publish Now’ or ‘Publish at a later date’ depending on their needs and strategy.

Do you know that you can also Monetise your Youtube Channels with Affiliate Links? If not, then we would like to share our Youtube affiliate marketing guide with you.

Can you do Affiliate Marketing on Pinterest without a Blog?

Affiliate marketing on Pinterest is simple – just add affiliate links to your pins before posting them. Unlike other social media platforms, Pinterest allows your pins to have a longer lifespan. As people pin and repin your content, there is a higher chance of your pin, containing affiliate links, appearing in search results. This means that even if your pin was created months or years ago, it can still generate income for you. There’s no need to worry about lengthy blog posts or complicated step-by-step processes. Pinterest provides a straightforward and effective way to earn money through affiliate marketing.

How to Maximize Your Pinterest Affiliate Marketing Potential?

1. Create a Business Account

Just like any other social media platform, Pinterest also has different types of accounts for different kinds of users. A Pinterest Business Account is different from a standard one and gives a user more options related to analytics, ads, audience insights, pin performance, and much more.

2. Create Boards & Pins Proactively

The amazing thing about Pinterest is that there are no restrictions on the number of affiliate pins you can make so you can make a lot of interesting pins for each article. Remember that you should highlight goods that your target market and speciality would be interested in. This helps make your content more consistent with your theme or niche and guarantees that you reach your intended audience. After creating a pin, you must make a suitable board for it. Boards are groups where you can save your pins. To attract your target audience, make sure your board is pertinent to the niche you are working in. Create a few new boards each month to let Pinterest’s algorithm know that your account is active.

3. Create Good Content

Pinterest is a tool to help you drive traffic to your website. Make sure to create great content related to your niche to attract new readers, not just from Pinterest but from all different sources as well. Users want to read something that adds value. The best type of content includes tutorials, how-to, product reviews, etc.

4. Join Groups

After you’ve covered the fundamentals, your next goal should be expansion. You can accomplish this by joining group boards, sharing trending information, or following other profiles. All of your followers will be added to a group board once you’ve joined it. This is a useful strategy for increasing the visibility of your profile and, consequently, of your pins. Just be careful to join discussion forums related to your interests or specialization.

5. Interact with your Audience

Pinterest is no different from other social media platforms when it comes to its algorithm. Creators must aim to interact with their audience regularly to establish themselves as a trustworthy part of the community. This includes replying to comments, repining content, commenting on other people’s posts, etc.

6. Schedule your Posts

By planning your pins to go live at the best moments, you may more effectively reach your target audience. Additionally, you won’t have to worry about not posting fresh information. It also enables you to make the most of your time so you can concentrate on writing more pertinent or related pieces.

7. Optimize for SEO

There are different things you can do to make your pins more SEO-friendly which include keeping your profile open, keeping your boards and pins tidy, looking for relevant keywords in your niche, and trying to incorporate those keywords into the descriptions of your profile, pins, and boards, among other things.

8. Use Analytics

Tracking and optimizing your pins’ performance will go a long way in increasing your reach. Pinterest Business Accounts can use the built-in analytics tool or can use third-party applications like Google Analytics to enhance their game further.

Further, there is also an alternative platform available for affiliate marketing other than Pinterest, where you can share your Images, and that is Instagram. Have a look at our Instagram affiliate marketing guide to know how it is done.

Things to Remember on Pinterest

1. Avoid Link Cloaking

Pinterest has strict guidelines against link cloaking. Cloaking involves hiding an affiliate link by using link shorteners. Pinterest is clear about its policy that the users must know before clicking where a link is going to take them.

2. Follow Affiliate Guidelines

Here are the guidelines for affiliate marketing on Pinterest:

1. Follow Paid Partnership Guidelines: Always adhere to Pinterest’s Paid Partnership Guidelines when engaging in affiliate marketing.
2. Maintain Authenticity: Use only one Pinterest account representing your genuine platform presence.
3. Provide Unique Value: Create original content that adds unique value to Pinners, offering something different from existing content.
4. Be Transparent: Disclose the commercial nature of your content and be transparent about your affiliate links and their behaviour. Note that certain URL shortener services may not be supported on Pinterest.
5. Avoid Manipulation: Do not use the artificial manipulation of Pinterest algorithms or Pinner traffic. Prohibited behaviours include using fake accounts, seeking reciprocal saving of affiliate Pins, and requesting others to create Pins with your affiliate links.
6. Moderation is Key: Create affiliate Pins in moderation and avoid excessive or repetitive posting. Marketers should follow Pinterest’s spam policy.

Pinterest’s Community Guidelines are a wonderful resource for affiliate marketers. The page covers topics such as site security and access, spam, paid partnership guidelines, and more. Affiliate marketers will be able to learn and effectively adapt to Pinterest’s Guidelines, which will help in creating a seamless experience for them on the platform.

3. Stay in Trend

While posting content relevant to your niche is necessary, you cannot forget the importance of staying on trend. Staying active on Pinterest will give you an idea of what the users are looking at at present, and you will be able to integrate the trend with your niche in creative ways.

Conclusion

Pinterest can be a great addition to any affiliate marketer’s growth strategy. It is an accessible channel where marketers can interact with their audience freely and generate leads and revenue while doing the same. We are sure that our tips and ideas will help you create a great Pinterest experience for your audience and will ultimately help in generating revenue for your business.

Some Other Platforms where you can Start Affiliate Marketing are:

• Facebook
• Linkedin

FAQs